


A Moment of Reflection

by sailorgreywolf



Series: Historical Hetalia Week 2020 [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23631685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailorgreywolf/pseuds/sailorgreywolf
Summary: Under the pressure of Willy Brandt’s new Ostpolitik Germany prepares himself to return to Warsaw for the first time since the war. He has to ask whether he is a changed man, and how he can show his contrition to someone he has wronged.
Series: Historical Hetalia Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1701136
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	A Moment of Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授翻】反思时刻](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29433081) by [dort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dort/pseuds/dort)



Germany stared at himself in the mirror as he tied a tie loosely around his neck. He was getting ready, more slowly than he usually did. It was for a diplomatic trip, and he was leaving today.

He and his chancellor would be going to Warsaw to sign a new treaty that formally accepted the borders of Poland, and hopefully began to repair the relations between them.

His chancellor had said that it was important to start making these meaningful gestures towards the Eastern Block, even if it did not fit America’s hard line towards communism. He was calling it his new Ostpolitik. Europe could not remain split forever, and making meaningful changes would give Germany a chance to reconcile with those he had hurt, and maybe to even open a way to see his brother again.

And while Germany understood all of this, he wasn’t certain that he felt prepared to return to Warsaw. It had been so many years since he had been there, but not enough since he had been there for conquest and brutality.

His hand slipped on the tie and the knot unraveled. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the present moment. Making himself late would not make anything better. It would just make him even more anxious.

He willed himself to not think of the dark past between him and Poland. They were trying to make amends with this trip, or at least start to. It was supposed to be the start of righting wrongs, which was all he could do to change what he did.

He managed to finish trying the knot, and let out a breath that he was holding like it had been a great task. Then he looked at himself again. The suit would be presentable when he put on his jacket, with a new German flag on his lapel: A different one than he had flown when he was last in Warsaw. That should be enough to show that he had changed.

He picked up the comb from the table next to him, and started to work on his hair. Be combed it back out of muscle memory. His mind was already on what he would say to Poland when he saw him again. Would it do any good to say that he was sorry? It would be sincere, but it would also feel like it woefully fell short. There weren’t words that would make any of it better.

Only action would truly make that point. He was prepared to offer whatever actions he could without upsetting the delicate balance of the Cold War.

He looked back at himself, and felt a sudden rush of revulsion. He had combed his hair the same way that he had during the Third Reich. He looked the same way that he did then. The only difference was that he was no longer wearing a uniform.

His mind said, derisively, “The war criminal is dressed up to pay penance. How quaint. How empty.”

Frustrated, he put one hand in his hair and mussed it. He started over, this time combing it with a part in the middle. It felt so strange, like he was combing it against its natural inclination. But, he told himself that his own discomfort didn’t matter at all. He couldn’t present the same face to someone he had wronged so deeply.

Once he finished, he put down the comb and looked closely at his reflection again. It looked so wrong on him, that he couldn’t imagine leaving the room like that. It looked entirely alien with his face.

He put his hand in his hair again, and disrupted it even more thoroughly. The hair fell into his face.

He looked at himself in the mirror again, now with his hair messy and falling over his forehead. For a moment, a strange awareness rippled across the surface of his mind.

He could see a boy in the mirror, dressed in imperial regalia and a black hat. He knew the boy, but the knowledge seemed to slip away from him. The boy was so familiar, but so distant. It was like the boy was him, but also distinctly different from him. He could not place why this all felt so familiar.

Germany blinked and the whole strange feeling disappeared, and he was just a man standing alone in a room looking at himself with messy hair.

He took a long, deep breath. He really must have been cracking under the pressure of facing his wrongdoings if he was starting to see things. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand. He whispered to himself, “Get it together, Ludwig. Remember what Gil would say. Decorum, strength.”

The last words that his brother had said to him before he had been taken by the Soviet Union was that he should be strong, and he meant to live by it.

He reminded himself again that going to Poland was a show of strength. It would be weak to hide from everything he had done and pretend that he was not responsible. A took strength and maturity to make right his wrongs.

He opened his eyes, and met his own gaze in the mirror. Blue eyes met blue eyes, determined.

He took the comb and started working on his hair again. This time parting it far to one side, so that it would not look so strange on his face. He combed it so that it was neat, and paused again to appraise his work.

It was not perfect, but it would do well enough. He turned away from the mirror, deciding that he had done enough. He picked up the jacket that he had carefully hung, and pulled it on.

He glanced at the mirror one more time, and felt like he did look convincingly contrite. He wasn’t clad in uniform, just a black suit and the haunted look of a man who had just fought a battle with himself.

It was harder to do it without support from his brother or without America, but he would still do it. He put the comb and a small handkerchief in the jacket pocket. Then he finally walked to the door to leave on his trip. He hoped this would go well.


End file.
